


what baking can do

by TaFuilLiom



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 19:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20879624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaFuilLiom/pseuds/TaFuilLiom
Summary: They laughed under their stomachs hurt in places, they grew reverent in others, pouring the ingredients of what made them great partners, friends and lovers back into the mix between them.





	what baking can do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lurkz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lurkz/gifts).

> A chance meeting leading to a reunion. Hope you enjoy :)

Words had always been a strong point for her. English, history, geography, politics. Give her any comprehensive essay and she was a wordsmith. As a kid, she’d had her nose stuck in a book more often than she would admit to now. 

Speeches, though. Those were not her strong point because ultimately, she knew once she had written it, she would have to actually give it. 

After staring at the same three scribbled out introductory paragraphs, Maggie pinched the bridge of her nose and leaned back until her chair creaked. It was the only sound above the air conditioning in the empty bullpen. She had arrived to work early with the intention of cracking out this speech in peace, but to no avail. 

Familiar frustrations began to rise up. Why was she, out of all of the officers, detectives and auxiliaries being honoured and promoted in three days, the one selected to give a speech at the ceremony? Her lieutenant said it would raise her profile and put her name into the heads of the people attending who mattered. People who would further her up the ranks in the future. That had seemed like a tempting offer at the time.

But now, staring at her tattered notebook, she realised it might have been a mistake. 

The elevator outside of her office pinged, and two rookies strolled through. Their voices filtered into her office from the hallway as they approached. She knew that if she was going to have any kind of standing in the future, she had to gain and maintain the support of these kinds of rookies. She’d never been one to strive for popularity, believing she had to sacrifice her dignity and morals in order to achieve it. 

But under her lieutenants’ guidance, she was growing tired of fighting in the trenches. He’d offered her a chance to climb out without surrendering and she was already clawing at the mud. 

That was why she forced herself not just to acknowledge the rookies as they passed, but to smile and bid them good morning. With the next batch of staff through the door, she even managed a comment about the early birds they were. She’d never been one for saccharine, but her goals were paramount. 

Turning back to her page, she tapped her pen on the scribbles, made a headway of ten words, then gave up. She stood and slung her jacket around her shoulders, deciding a walk might let her search for some inspiration. 

She made it a block from the precinct before the smell of freshly baked bread drew her to the storefront of  _ Dream Delights _ bakery. The lightly spiced scent made her think of the cinnamon rolls her aunt baked in the winter, and before could stop herself she was entering the bakery. 

Stacks of boxes were piled on a mahogany table by the counter. They had a simple logo design which read ‘ _ Diet Donuts _ ’. Intrigued, she pinched the plaque on the tabletop and read the summary of how these donuts were specially baked to have low sugar and plenty of protein. She wrinkled her nose at the prospect of protein powder being poured into an otherwise pleasant cake mix, but it did seem appealing in a key way. 

The stereotype was changing for uniformed officers and senior staff alike. No longer were they cramming their faces with sugary donuts, they were gymrats. She picked up a box and studied the packaging. This was a potential compromise between the two. She could plate them out in the breakroom and send out an email to her bullpen. Popularity points, once again. 

Engrossed in the blurb, reading through the nutrients, she almost missed the pinging of the bell above the entrance. As a detective, she knew she should have been aware of her surroundings at all time, but this time she wasn’t. 

She stiffened in alarm at a familiar voice.

“Hi, can I order a birthday cake?”

The black box of donuts crumpled in her grip. She wanted to run but was caught rigid in her place. She could only see the back of the figure at the counter, but she would know that outline anywhere.

“Sure,” the shopgirl replied, “What kind of cake? Chocolate, sponge?”

“Uh,” the customer laughed nervously, “Actually, carrot.”

“Carrot cake?” A pause, confused. “For a birthday?”

“I know,” the customer conceded, “But the birthday girl has...particular tastes.”

Maggie felt sick, like she’d clawed at the four-tiered wedding cake on the table next to the donuts and began to scoff it into her mouth. Suddenly everything was sickly sweet, the smell, the music, the decor. Who was the birthday girl? A girlfriend? How the hell after months of avoiding DEO crime scenes and ignoring social media from the Superfriends had she managed to land herself in the presence of- 

“And the age?” The shopgirl prompted, scribbling some details onto a piece of paper. 

“Six.” 

Six, not a girlfriend, not someone she called honey or sweetie or even sugar when she felt flirty. But a child. Maggie wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. 

“Ah, at that age they’re still adorable.”

“Not if she doesn’t get this carrot cake. She’ll be a little demon.”

This made the shop girl laugh. “The name?”

“Alex Danvers.”

And while Maggie knew the voice, the hair, the stride even, the name still knocked air from her chest. She trembled around the donut box, unsure whether to try and leave, or speak, or remain silent and watch this surrealist scene play out. 

Alex shrugged as she rifled her purse from her jacket. “How much?”

“Oh, you can pay on collection. It’s a customer satisfaction thing.”

“Oh, okay.”

“When do you need it for?”

“A few days time. Thursday.” Alex rocked back on her heels. “I know, it’s a little close to the knuckle.”

“No, we can have it ready in two days. Just leave your number and we’ll give you a call.”

The shopgirl slid the piece of paper across the counter and Alex bent to write her number on it. Maggie took the opportunity to take a slow, deep breath, her nerves zipping in her stomach, throat, chest. 

“Thanks,” Alex said, handing over the pen and turning to go. 

Maggie ducked her head, cheeks blazing. She waited to be noticed at the mahogany table, but she wasn’t. Alex went right out the door without so much as a glance in her direction. She watched through the glass as the agent made her way across the walkway without a single look back. 

Relaxing her grip on the donuts, Maggie glided over to the counter, sure this was all a dream. The shopgirl looked up and smiled, leaning over to peer at the box in Maggie’s hands. 

“Oh, good choice,” she mused, ringing the donuts up on her register. “That’ll be-”

“I want to pay for that cake.”

The shopgirl gaped, slowly looked at the box of donuts, then frowned. She leaned back on her heels to see if Maggie was gesturing to one of the iced cakes beneath the counter. “Cake? Which cake?”

“The one that Alex Danvers just ordered.”

The girl’s eyebrows flew to her hairline. “Do you...know her?”

Maggie cleared her throat and tried to relax the steely posture she held. She was proud of herself for getting Alex’s name out in one go. “Yeah. I know her.”

“Okay, that’ll be $50.” She tallied at the piece of paper which had Alex’s name and number at the bottom. “Plus the donuts which brings it to $62.”

Maggie paid by card, and when she got a chance to write a message on a card for the cake, she wrote:  _ “Happy 6th Birthday! Hope you have a lovely day.”  _

It was generic, but she didn’t know the girl well enough to personalise it, didn’t even know if it was Alex’s child, or a friend’s. She froze with the pen poised on the card, wondering if she had misinterpreted the entire scenario. But she slid the card back across the counter, reassured that no matter what, it was a gift for Alex. 

“You aren’t signing?”

She looked at her handwriting. “No. She’ll know.”

She returned to the precinct, and with her anxiety about the speech at the back of the queue, she wrote fluidly and without pause until her draft was complete.

~

A naive part of her thought that Alex would contact her. She kept glancing at her phone with every text or notification, just waiting for it to be Alex texting her gratitude. But nothing came.

It hit that she had made a mistake. If Alex had a partner, girlfriend, then this would have put her in an incredibly awkward situation. She might even have had to lie to them about who had written the cake’s card. She began to regret it. 

When she and Emily were still new, they would make cookies together on their day off. In those days when the relationship was fresh and exciting, Maggie once swapped out the sugar for the salt as a harmless prank. She waited with anticipation as Emily took the first bite and screwed up her face, laughing along with Maggie when she realised the trick. 

And later, when it was bitter and frayed, it was as if their own relationship had gone through the same bait and switch. 

This now, an action she thought had good intentions, was turning bitter like those cookies. 

Regardless, Maggie gave her speech at the dinner following the promotion ceremony. Her applause rang in her ears as she headed back up to her office. She’d left a collection of case files locked in a drawer, and wanted to make sure she grabbed them before going home for the night. 

She patted at her uniform, but struggled to find the key for the lock. She flicked on her lamp, flooding her desk with the only light in the room, and scanned the surface around her computer. She bent down at drawer-level, still rummaging around in her pockets, when she heard a knock on the doorframe.

Thinking it was her lieutenant, she called out.

“Gimme one second,” she shouted, rummaging around in her drawer. 

“You can have a second, sure.”

Maggie almost banged her head when she scrambled up from her crouch to see Alex Danvers leaning in the doorway of the bullpen. She glanced around to make sure they were alone, then straightened and leaned against the desk. “Hey.”

Alex smiled. “Hey.”

Maggie smoothed down the front of her uniform. “What are you doing here?”

Holding up the box, Alex’s smile grew wider. “You didn’t think you could pay for a cake without getting a piece, did you?”

“You knew it was me, huh?”

Alex toyed with the strap of her satchel bag. “You didn’t leave your name, but I’d know that handwriting anywhere.”

In the fuzzy lamplight, she practically glided over. She produced a tupperware box from the stachel and dragged over a spare metal chair, sitting on the opposite side of Maggie’s desk. The surrealism tempting, Maggie lowered herself into her desk chair and scooted in to see the contents of the box which Alex clicked open. 

“For you,” Alex said, pushing the box over. There was a large chunk of carrot cake haphazardly sliced and squashed in to fit the container. 

She gestured at the slice. “This is way too big just for me.”

“Good thing I brought two forks.” Alex reached into the satchel and sure enough brought out two forks and two napkins. 

When she was young, Maggie’s grandmother taught her that anything could be put on hold for food. Fights could be stopped for a family meal, worries could be discarded for a full stomach. When she fought with Maggie’s grandfather, she cooked until, with dozy heads and full bellies, they realised there was no hunger for fighting anymore. 

Maybe that was why it wasn’t so strange that she sat opposite her ex-fiancée and curled a fork into the plush spongy texture, as if their last goodbye could be forgotten with the pleasant, sweet flavours. 

“So the cake,” Alex said. 

“The cake.” 

As if that all made sense. Balancing a mouthful of cake on her fork, Maggie told her all about them both being in the bakery, and deciding to buy the cake ahead of time. Apologetic that she hadn’t seen Maggie lingering by those diet donuts, Alex said as much. 

Maggie replied, “Then it wouldn’t have been a nice surprise.”

There was a moment when their eyes met, and the dream wavered, and a million memories rushed around the room. Dancing, screwing, laughing, crying, shouting, shooting. And then there was just Alex’s downcast features. 

Maggie toyed with the fork, then used it to scoop some stray icing from the lip of the container onto her bite of cake. “The birthday girl, who is she?”

Maggie finally tasted the cake as Alex rifled around in her pocket for a few seconds. She got out her phone and thumbed until she brought up a picture of a young girl sandwiched between herself and Kara. 

“Her name’s Jay’Murzah. She’s from Tovar VI. It’s a satellite moon around Tan-Vol. Her parents were killed in an accident, and she’s been stranded here since.”

Maggie reached out cautiously, and Alex trustfully dropped the phone into her palm. She scrolled through several images of the girl, and then came to a video. Glancing at Alex for confirmation, she pressed play and watched the young girl, no older than five, getting a piggyback from Kara, who was huffing and neighing as if she were a horse. 

“We tried to find contact for her planet but no luck so far. We couldn’t just leave her in the DEO so I guess it was an emergency foster situation.” Alex took her first bite, chewed and then, “But that was four months ago.”

Maggie hummed and handed back the phone. “Jay’Murzah.” 

“Jay’mi, for short. In school she spells it Jamie, so she doesn’t stand out too much.” Alex shrugged a shoulder. “But her accent pretty much does that for her, poor kid.”

“Struggling with English?”

“Yeah. According to the intergalactic permits her parents were just here on vacation. They’d achieved registration for two Earth languages, English and Spanish, with their planet’s Bureau of Communications.” Alex carefully scooped a crumbling bite from the corner of the box, cupping her spare hand underneath her fork as she lifted it out. “But she obviously didn’t pick it up from them. I guess they didn’t think they needed to teach her.”

“Learning curve?”

Alex hummed around her mouthful, nodding. She swallowed and said, “Yeah. I’m trying to learn Tovarian, she’s trying to learn English.”

“Damn.”

Maggie took a deliberately big bite then, unwilling to say anything more than that one-word reaction. Plugging her mouth meant she was less likely to say anything stupid, or angry, or lonely, or wanting. She let the pleasant aroma of the fresh cake keep her drifting in this dreamlike atmosphere. 

But Alex watched her carefully, waiting to jump in when she swallowed, so she couldn’t escape a question again. “And you?”

Relenting, Maggie caught her up on as much as she could think of, the new yoga studio she attended, the cases she was working, the reason she gave her speech. She carefully dropped a hint that she was single in the guise of a self-deprecating joke, and if Alex intentionally leaned an inch closer, they didn’t draw attention to it. There was something seductive about the warm atmosphere, the silent empty precinct office, the single lamp that could be shuttered off and leave them to the darkness and desire. 

It was a weird, strange atmosphere they generated between them. They tasted the cake, they started to catch up, and Maggie felt as if this were all a dream. It lulled them into a sense of security and vulnerability until Alex finally opened up with the question that she knew drew her to the office tonight. 

“Why did you do that for her?” Alex asked softly.

Maggie was impressed that the other woman had tempered her language, choosing  _ her _ and not  _ me.  _ She pressed a napkin to her mouth, buying herself a second or two, and then, “Just generous, that’s all.”

Alex blinked. “Just generous?”

She nodded, and Alex seemed crestfallen at the answer. They continued to scrummage around their corners of the tupperware box, trying not to let their knuckles brush. It was a good cake, she had to admit. The texture and taste, even the look of it was to her preference. Though why a six year old would choose carrot cake was beyond her. She asked to break the silence, and Alex explained that her tastebuds reacted differently on Earth to those of human children. 

She hated dino nuggets, loved vegetables and some tartier fruits, so she knew nutrition was one thing they wouldn’t have to argue about when she was growing up, if Alex could keep her that is. 

Maybe, Maggie thought, it was the dim lighting, the nighttime. Maybe it was seeking emotional refuge with an old lover who used to know her intimately inside and out. But Alex confessed easily that their road together had not been without bumps. She struggled to adjust to Jay’mi’s customs. Aside from the language barrier, there was also grief and trauma her girl was facing. Alex liked to think about the long term future and plan for it, but honestly, she said, she was seeking help. 

And maybe it was that dim lighting, the nighttime, the old lover, that made Maggie take a step forward in this direction. As if she could see the recipe from how Alex told it, but saw that it was missing an ingredient. 

“You know, I know a guy. He’s a Tovark” she said, poking her fork slowly into the cake, keeping her eye on the sinking prongs and not the woman on the opposite side of the desk, “Maybe he could help Jay’mi with English?”

Alex perked up. “Really?”

“I can introduce you, if you want.”

Eyes bright and shining in the lamp, Alex saw that the cake was finished. She took the two forks, clipped the container closed, and balled their napkins into the trash. Then she stood, slinging her satchel over her shoulder.

“I’ve got your number.”

And just like that, she left, the only sign that she hadn’t been a spectre of Maggie’s imagination being the two used napkins in her trash. 

~

Mat’tyah’oh, or Matt, as Maggie called him, was a police dispatcher. She had dated his sister for a while when she was in her academy class, but got to know him better when he ended up owing her several favours. Now, she was here to collect. 

When she explained the situation, he was more than happy to help. A hastily arranged meeting with a desperate foster parent, two Tovarks and a detective who was definitely not trying to spend more time with her ex girlfriend whether it was healthy or not, and the quartet were in an ice cream shop. 

An initially shy Jay’mi melted into delight when she heard her native tongue. Matt was happy to take Jay’mi to the counter and order for the four of them, and Maggie couldn’t help but be drawn up in the atmosphere. 

Her first impressions were positive. Jay’mi was a cute kid, burdened with a worldliness that came from experiencing grief much too young. Yet she was still very much full of enthusiasm. 

The booths were rather cramped, the table fixed below, so when Matt and Jay’mi returned, she and Alex had to shuffle right to the wall. Their knees pressed together beneath the table. With Matt and Jay’mi talking another language entirely, a bond formed between them, almost an intimacy. Maggie saw how Alex’s trepidation receded into relief, and finally into a relaxed smile - a knowing smile. 

A motherly smile, a woman looking at her child with fondness. 

It struck Maggie, sandwiched in a booth in an ice cream shop with two aliens and her ex-lover, that in all the arguments and back and forth they had about children, she never had this piece of the puzzle to imagine. She thought about the nightmares, the responsibility, the fact that Alex was going to break up with her, and yet never took a minute to imagine this kind of expression crossing her lover’s face. 

(She was scared to move her knee where it was wedged between Alex’s and the wall, but when she finally did because of cramp, she saw how Alex tried to maintain a pokerface, but her mouth twitched just so). 

After an hour, they stood outside. Matt put his hands in his pockets and turned to Alex. “She says that she misses her parents, but Alex and Kara are a lot of fun.”

Alex’s whole stature seemed to drop a few inches, as if it had been elevated by the stress. Now, she knew the hard work she had put in to acclimatize the girl was paying off. She turned to Maggie. “Are you off the rest of the day?”

Maggie nodded. “Yeah. Need something?”

“We’re going to the planetarium.” Alex held her hand out and Jay’mi took it. “Wanna come?”

Jay’mi and Matt were both staring at them intently, the girl swinging Alex’s hand. In her hesitation to answer immediately, Alex’s bravado faltered. 

“Unless you- I mean, you don’t-”

“I’ll come.”

Hunching down and cupping his hands dramatically around his mouth, Matt whispered something to Jay’mi in Tovarian which made her giggle. If Alex understood the translation, she didn’t reply, but Maggie noticed the hint of blush on her cheeks and a frenetic energy about her for some time after.

She had only visited the National City Planetarium three times before; twice as a beat cop when there were suspected break-ins, and once as a detective when there was a sudden death under alleged suspicious circumstances. Fortunately for her caseload, it was easily signed off by the coroner as a heart attack, no nefarious motives. 

But this time was different, as a visitor. This time, she had a six year old alien who latched onto her jeans in the dark, who clutched tighter to her or Alex when the exhibits had large noises or pyrotechnics. The dark let her sneak glances at her ex girlfriend, equally as fascinated with the displays and the information as the child. 

They stopped in front of a wide open, vast darkness with twinkling lights. Alex knelt down and seemed to think for a second, concentrate, and then she struggled through what Maggie assumed was a sentence in Tovarian. She must have been successful, as Jay’mi looked up in wonder, then tottered up to press her hand against the display, covering a silver light representing a star. 

Still kneeling, Alex watched Jay’mi have her moment, hand curling into a tight fist on her knee. Maggie didn’t need to ask for the translation.

After that, Jay’mi whispered a word to her over and over again in the dark, latching onto the bottom of her jacket, or clinging to Alex’s hand. She asked Alex what it meant, but she didn’t know, so she texted Matt an approximation of the spelling. 

He replied:  _ If it’s the word I think it is, it means ‘family’. _

In the gift shop Alex bought a Saturn keyring, and Jay’mi picked out an alien plushie. It was mint green with big black eyes. She watched them from behind the stand of fridge magnets that she spun with her fingertip, lines beginning to blur. 

It was like tasting something she had never tried before and being blanketed in the special surprise that not only did she love it: she would very much like more of it. 

~

Whether it was the pleading in Jay’mi’s eyes or Alex’s, she was persuaded to come back to Alex’s new apartment for pizza. It was a bad idea as soon as she stepped over the threshold, getting a quick tour, wondering who else had been through this doors, sat on this couch, shared meals at this table. 

She shouldn’t have been jealous. She shouldn’t. But she was. 

She said goodnight to a sleepy, pyjama-clad Jay’mi and managed to say it in Tovarian. Even sluggish and ready for bed, this stirred excitement in the young face. 

Jay’mi may have been struggling to learn English but she curled her tiny fist around Maggie’s wrist and pleaded, “Come again, please.”

Unable to refuse such innocence, Maggie could only agree. 

She returned to the kitchen to find Alex looking at the alien plushie, like she had asked it a question and was waiting for the answer. When she looked up, that question was still there, fixed on Maggie, who had no answer either.

“Thank you for coming today,” she finally said, settling the plushie against the couch. 

“I can stay and help clean up, if you want,” Maggie offered.

Alex stared at the plushie, the hint of a smile twitching at her lips. “That’d be great.”

So Maggie helped her finish the last slices of pizza and clear up the box. Then, they cleaned up dishes, one washing and one drying like the old days. Their elbows bumped, and then somehow a wrist was caught in a questioning grip and dropped cutlery rattled down onto the draining board, and it was lips on lips. 

It was the same quick kiss it had been that first time, the demand for something that wasn’t fully understood yet, when Alex had murmured  _ I’ve been wanting to do that,  _ and had delivered more passion into Maggie’s existence with a single kiss than had been in the previous string of relationships with supposedly experienced lesbians. 

Now, Alex was wiser, reserved. When she pulled back, she said, “Wait I’m sorry I shouldn’t have-”

“It’s okay. There’s no one.”

Alex stood further upright, digesting the meaning immediately. “There’s no one for me, either,” she said, and leaned in for a second kiss. 

But after this, after hands on her lower back and Alex kissing more stars into her head than the entire planetarium, a shift occurred. As if a switch was flicked, Alex retreated, as if Maggie had answered wrongly to a question. 

Alex picked up the drying towel from where it had been abandoned, hanging limp over the side of the sink, like nothing had happened at all.

Saying nothing, Maggie plunged back into the water, the taste of Alex’s lips lingering on her own.

~

Maggie couldn’t get over the regret in Alex’s eyes, the way she had kissed her cheek and thanked her and how it had felt like a real goodbye after a short dance. 

They didn’t text, didn’t call, didn’t communicate at all for three days. Her speech went down a treat at the promotion ceremony, her lieutenant told her. So did the  _ Diet Donuts _ , if the empty box stuffed in the break room trash told her anything. Three rookies stopped her in the corridor to thank her and ask her where she got them from. 

She was onto a winner with that one. Pity she didn’t feel that way. 

With her first mediation request on her desk, she sighed and realised this was the nature of moving up the ranks. Two partners who didn’t get along had botched a robbery investigation because of their attempts to undermine each other. They required someone of a more senior rank to step in and scold them. But since it was two rookies and a robbery, it wasn’t deemed important enough for internal investigations, who asked that it be a department matter. Maggie was given the case by her lieutenant with a wink. Earning stripes was all she felt she did, now. 

So she did the same thing she had done a week before, slung on her jacket and headed for the bakery, hoping for the same brush of fate. Honestly, the two kisses she had shared with her ex had lit a fire underneath her ribcage that she had struggled to extinguish ever since. It wasn’t even the same as when she and Alex were together. This was more than that. More longing, more want, more desperation that they could fix this. 

And this confused her. Because she had broken up with Alex over the issue of having children and yet, with Jay’mi, with Alex fostering her, with the idea of a future in the balance… 

Maggie thought about the girl placing her hand over the star where her planet was. A connected forged with childish fingers trying to claw at the space where home once was. Which still was home, really, except they couldn’t get her there. Under different, more malevolent circumstances, Maggie knew what it was like to pass the house, the physical location, which once was home and which was no longer. Which she had been cast away from never to return. 

She wondered if she could help guide a girl like that.

She came back to her senses as she stepped into the bakery. Amongst the racks of teacakes, macaroons, donuts and cupcakes, there was a glittering sign which read:  _ We do deliveries! _ She read the three words again and again, until finally the meaning clicked. 

She purchased a box of mini-carrot cake slices, paid for the packaging and courier, and wrote on the card:  _ To Jay’mi. Enjoy this treat.  _ Then she gave details of Alex’s apartment and told them to deliver in the early evening when Alex would be home from work.

Two days later, a courier with a visitor’s pass trotted along the desks in the bustling bullpen until finding hers and halting. He smiled and handed her a maroon coloured parcel. 

“Detective Sawyer?”

She glanced him up and down, not reaching for the parcel. “Yeah?”

He waved the parcel as if to confirm it wasn’t suspicious. “Delivery from  _ Dream Delights _ ?”

She swallowed. “Who from?”

“ _ Dream Delights  _ bakery. Don’t know the sender.” The courier shook the parcel slightly, prompting her to finally take it from him. “Enjoy.”

She carefully pulled at the purple ribbon and picked at the flaps of the box until it opened to reveal a diamond shaped section of tiramisu. She grinned and let herself read the accompanying piece of card: 

_ “Bring it yourself, next time.” _

The dance was back on. 

~

But she didn’t, and so began an exchange. 

Maggie watched the shopgirl - Amelia - box up some freshly baked ginger biscuits. She and Alex had eaten them with coffee on their first date and ever since, their light cinnamon spice reminded her of those first kisses in their relationship. On the card she simply put a question mark;  _ ? _ . 

The next day, a package arrived for her at the precinct. It was a vegan butterscotch slice, one similar to the slice they’d shared on Maggie’s couch the morning after Valentine’s Day, hungover from the champagne and each other. There was a comically large piece of folded card for the length of the message scrawled on it. All it said was  _ Yes _ .

Keeping up the communication, she sent something with coconut in it. She hated coconut to the point where it made her gag, so Alex had stopped ordering any dessert or meal with coconut in it when they were together. She wanted to make her meaning very clear by sending it, and on the card she wrote:  _ I’m willing to try. Is this something you want?  _

Like clockwork, the courier appeared the next day. He seemed exasperated from having to slog his way through the entire precinct once again just to deliver the parcel to Detective Sawyer, so she tipped him for his service. This time, Alex had sent back apple pie. As Maggie microwaved it, she thought about the jokes they would made about being all-American, getting a house with a white picket fence, a dog, a proper car rather than two bikes, having steady jobs and a shared mortgage.

On the crest of crust, there was a tiny frosted fence and a miniature german shepherd made from marshmallow, just like they’d talked about. Alex hadn’t sent any written message with it, but as Maggie played with the spongy texture of the marshmallow pup, the reply had been clear. 

The microwave pinged and she took out the plate. Then she propped the dog on the side, and snapped a picture of it on her phone. She sent it through to Alex’s number. 

_ This supposed to be Gertrude? _

The reply was almost immediate.  _ Yeah, it is. _

Usually Maggie loathed the break room. It smelled of unwashed kitchenware, was littered with abandoned tupperware, and had virtually no ventilation, which meant the smell of everyone’s meals lingered over one another. 

But today, sitting at a rickety table with a missing foot and eating her apple pie, Maggie was in heaven. 

~

After that, Maggie called for an end to their game. She asked Alex if there was a chance that they could talk, and when Alex replied with an affirmation, Maggie knew it was crunchtime. 

She made her way to Alex’s, but not without stopping at the bakery. She bought a selection of round cheesecakes about the size of her palm. They were similar to the circular style that they were supposed to sample as dessert for their wedding. 

When Alex answered the door, nerves were evident in her jerky moves and hunched posture. “Come in, come- yeah just-”

Maggie drifted to the island and set down the box. She turned and relayed the icebreaker she had been practising the entire way over. “I think I’m starting to put on a few pounds. This week I’ve eaten more sugar than I’ve had in years.”

It worked, Alex’s shoulders relaxing with her shy laugh. She looked at Maggie through her eyelashes. “So you decided to burn it all off by walking here, huh?”

“Exactly. You should see the step counter on my phone.”

Alex watched Maggie unbox her parcel and went to retrieve two teaspoons from a drawer. The rattle, clink and bang of the drawer betrayed the anxiety Alex must have been feeling. 

“Kara is babysitting,” she said, as if Maggie didn’t already know. 

“How is Jay’mi?”

“Good, good. She, yeah. Good.”

“Alex,” Maggie said, reaching out to calm the storm she saw brewing before her. “Don’t panic. Let’s just...talk, okay?”

Alex nodded, and then smiled shyly at the cheesecake samples. “And eat, huh?”

And so they did. Over tastings that could have been for their wedding, they talked about Jay’mi, Kara, cases. They talked about the women who had passed between them in the space between what they were and what they could be. They confessed that their time apart had felt like a lull, something not finished, like when an orchestra shuffled about with sheet music and retuned their instruments between movements: the music had stopped, but the concert wasn’t over yet. 

They cycled through the cheesecake flavours as they cycled through their topics, rich and colourful. They laughed under their stomachs hurt in places, they grew reverent in others, pouring the ingredients of what made them great partners, friends and lovers back into the mix between them. 

Then, with a power in her chest, Alex admitted, “I’ve missed you, Maggie. Really.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” she replied. 

Alex reached over to swipe stray cream from the side of Maggie’s mouth, brushing slightly over her lower lip. She might have pretended to be innocent, but Maggie knew Alex better than that. Knew she had learned the steps it took to get Maggie to dance. 

Her cheeks burned, prickling out into heat as if she was near an industrial oven, baking, baking, baking. 

“We should go slow,” Maggie said. 

“I agree,” said Alex, retracting her hand. 

But when she fed some lemon topped sample to Alex with a fork, holding her eye contact the entire time, then slow wasn’t so slow, anymore 

~

They did finish the rest of the cheesecake samples; albeit post-coital, feeding each other with their fingertips and wrapped in Alex’s bedsheets. 

~

Three years later, Alex ordered their wedding cake from the same bakery. The staff had come and gone over the years, but there was always a familiar face that was constant.

“Wedding cake?” Amelia repeated, her voice raised in surprise.

“Yeah,” Alex smiled. 

With a click of her pen, Amelia scribbled down the word  _ wedding _ and underscored it. “Can’t say I’m surprised.” She wrote down the name without asking. “With the amount of money you’ve spent in here over the years, you probably could have paid for your wedding already.”

Alex played with a keyring in her pocket, that same one she had bought at the planetarium when she and Maggie had finally come back to each other. The ring of Saturn had all but discoloured from wear, now just a nude-plastic colour with the golden paint chipped away. Yet while Jay’mi was a few grades older now, she still loved trips to the planetarium with her two moms. 

She made for the door, but paused to examine a pyramid of cupcakes. They were a mirage of pastels cascading down a wooden pedestal. As she contemplated bringing a box for Kara, the bell of the shop tinkled.

“The wedding cake that was just ordered?” said the customer, “I’d like to pay for it.” 

Alex looked up past the cupcake pyramid to see a familiar figure at the counter, leaving money out of their wallet. 

Amelia looked over the customer’s shoulder at Alex agape, and she shrugged. There would be no talking them out of it, she knew. 

The shopgirl gave him the figure. “What’s the name?”

“J’onn J’onzz. I know the brides.”

Only then did he glance back at Alex with a carefully tempered expression, though she saw the mischief and pride glint in his eye. Amelia took his money, and began to count. Alex watched her recount, planning to hunt for an embargoed bottle of Ver’Shithia that he enjoyed from the DEO vaults as a thank you.

Amelia rang up the register. “What is with you people?”

Alex grinned, turning back to the pastel before her. She toyed with the tablecloth, remembering those magic words from when she got her second chance. 

“Just generous, that’s all.”


End file.
